Drones Will Soon Monitor Endangered Animals in Africa

Belgian research team says there are still kinks to work out before drones replace airplane surveillance

Elephants in Burkina Faso are photographed from a height of 300 meters using a drone.

Scientists recently completed one of the first unmanned aerial surveys of wildlife in Africa, which could one day lead to endangered animal protection and poacher prevention.

The survey was completed in Burkina Faso's Nazinga Game Ranch, one of the few areas of Africa where the African elephant population is growing, says Cedric Vermeulen, a researcher at Belgium's Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech.

Vermeulen says drone monitoring has several advantages over typical plane-based surveying: drones are cheaper and can be launched more easily than a plane. But the model the team used, the Gatewing x100 was only able to fly for 40 minutes at a time and its camera couldn't zoom in far enough to see any animals besides elephants.

"We were a little disappointed because we couldn't see antelopes or baboons, but it was good for counting elephants," he says. "But in order for this to be an effective alternative to planes, we have to be able to identify all three."

Drones also offer a security and logistics advantage over plane monitoring, Vermeulen says. In Burkina Faso, fuel used for airplanes is often siphoned out of the plane, and finding someone to fly one can be problematic.

"In this part of Africa, it's difficult to organize a plane," he says. "The idea with drones is that they are less expensive and less dangerous because if they crash, there's no one on them."

But in order for drones to be truly useful, Vermeulen says the team needs an aircraft that can cover hundreds of kilometers at a time.

Vermeulen's team isn't the only group looking into using unmanned aircraft to monitor endangered wildlife. In December, Google announced it was giving $5 million to the World Wildlife Fund for anti-poaching drones in Africa and Asia. Those drones will be able to track poachers more easily than park rangers located on the ground, according to the WWF.

Catastrophic Loss of Wildlife in Okavango (Botswana)

All is not well among the 50 000 islands, clear channels and countless creatures in one of the most bountiful wildlife areas on earth.

An aerial survey commissioned by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, and undertaken by Michael Chase and Kelly Landen of Elephants Without Borders has found 11 species in serious decline in the delta. Comparing surveys going back to 1993, wildebeest numbers are shown to have shrunk by 90%; giraffe by 65%; tsessebe by 83%; lechwe by 58% and zebra by 53%. Also down about 80% are warthog, kudu, roan and ostrich. From 1999 to the present - only 10 years - the running average for total species decline is about 61%.

"There's a catastrophic loss of wildlife," said Chase”,and we cannot be certain about why. But one thing is clear from the survey -- the delta's wildlife is in trouble."

According to the report the species decline is the result of "a complex mixture of local causes", including human encroachment, game fences and poaching. Another factor could be fire.

Much of the area surveyed in the late dry season was burning, the report says. 

“The most potent factor, however, is seen to be drought. With torrential rain and flooding across the region this year, it's hard to imagine this being the cause. But using rainfall data from the 1920s, the survey found that the decline of animals coincided with the onset of a long, dry cycle starting in 1980 -- the most severe ever recorded -- which has only just broken.

During that time the Okavango River water flow rates were the lowest since records began,” says the report.

But elephants and hippos are bucking the downward trend. Hippos have increased steadily at 6% a year, and the elephant population is holding steady. "We found the number of elephants in northern Botswana has stabilized at about 130,000," Chase is quoted as saying. "One reason is that they're returning to Angola."

Jonas Savimbi's troops are thought to have slaughtered about 150,000 elephants for meat and to finance Angola's civil war by selling ivory. All the rhino went the same way. When Elephants Without Borders the surveyed strife-torn Luiana National Park in 2001 there were 38 elephants; in 2005 it had jumped to 3 000, and by 2008 the count was 8 000.

How did they know it was safe to return to Angola? "The country is remembered by a generation of elephants still alive today," said Chase. "They recognise the pathways to food and water and the timing of seasons. They remember where the hunters are. In a sense, they're Angolan refugees returning home.

"The bulls are the scouts, leaving the vicinity of Botswana's conservation areas on exploration journeys. They move from the delta up the Kwando River, streak across the Caprivi at night and into Angola. They find it’s pristine, with few people. There are thought to be millions of landmines in south-east Angola. I don't know how they avoid them -- probably by smell -- but they do. Then they return and fetch the family herds."

The distance elephants walk is staggering. Chase and Landen have tracked a collared elephant that covered 32,000km in two years, the greatest distance ever recorded for the species. "They look for food and water," said Chase. "But they're also searching for peaceful sanctuaries far from humans.

"For elephants to survive, we need to identify safe corridors, linkages between areas, networks, dispersal areas, Transfrontier Parks. We need to let their movement draw the lines which define wildlife ecosystems. There's not much time left. Their future is in our hands. We have to get it right and do it now, while we still have the opportunity."

The survey suggests that many of the threats to animals come from hunting, fence-related deaths, habitat fragmentation and poaching outside the reserves. It notes that if the current problems persist, the populations of large plains game in northern Botswana are likely to remain low, while the wildebeest and tsessebe populations could collapse altogether.

The only way to monitor the situation, it says, is to conduct regular aerial surveys; in this way wildlife managers will be able to track population dynamics, set priorities and focus on the species that is most in need of attention.

New report Finds Captive Lion Reintroduction Programmes in Africa Operate Under “Conservation Myth”

New York, NY

 A new report published in the international conservation journal Oryx concludes that commercial 'wildlife encounter' operations across Africa promoting the reintroduction of captive lions do little to further the conservation of African lions in the wild.

Released 'Early Online' on July 31, 'Walking with lions: Why there is no role for captive-origin lions (Panthera Leo) in species restoration,' was authored by a blue-ribbon panel of lion conservationists and wild cat biologists from Panthera, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group and a team of university-based lion researchers. Demonstrating that no lions have been successfully released as a result of this process, the report determines that commercial captive lion reintroduction programs operate largely under a 'conservation myth.'

The last two decades has seen a rapid growth of such operations especially across Southern Africa. Advertised as 'wildlife encounters,' the programs typically charge tourists and paying volunteers to pet, feed and walk with hand-raised and so-called tame lions. To the paying public, the stated objective is the eventual release to the wild of lions.

The Oryx paper assesses the potential of these programs to assist wild lion conservation by evaluating the role and suitability of captive lions for release. The report concludes that captive-bred lions are simply unnecessary for reintroduction projects. For more than two decades, wild lions have been translocated and rigorously monitored in over 40 parks across southern Africa with high success rates. Over 500 wild lions have been re-established by this process. More importantly, the evaluation shows that captive-bred lions and their offspring are poorly suited for survival and release compared to their wild-born counterparts.

The report's senior author and Panthera's President, Dr. Luke Hunter, explained, "The simple fact is, 'lion encounter' type programs do little to help conserve wild lions. We show that any sincere effort to re-establish lions simply has no reason to resort to captive animals; wild lions are already much better equipped to be wild. Releasing captive animals unnecessarily increases the costs, risks of failure and the danger - to both lions and humans."

A tourist was recently attacked at a lion encounter operation in Zimbabwe. She made a full recovery.

The report also claims that captive-lion enterprises divert critical resources and attention from projects making a real impact on declining wild lion populations. Dr Paula White, an author of the paper and Director of the Zambia Lion Project at the University of California notes, "These operations charge the public to spend time with tame lions claiming that it contributes meaningfully to lion conservation. Imagine if that funding, and the sincere interest of the people paying it, was devoted to addressing the real reasons that wild lions are declining and threatened. Spending money to breed lions behind fences is not helping."

While perhaps more than 200,000 wild lions lived in Africa over a century ago, their numbers are now thought to be fewer than 30,000. Listed as 'Vulnerable' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and extirpated from over 80% of its natural range, the lion is now on track to share the fate of its distant cousin, the Endangered tiger.

Dr. Matthew Becker, CEO of the Zambian Carnivore Programme (and not an author on the report) notes “Certainly interacting with tame lions is a unique experience, but it's not conservation. We have such 'Walking with Lions' programs in Zambia and they require a continual stream of young imported lions, which live out their days in captivity because they are not suitable for release. Zambia doesn't need captive-bred lions versus increased protection of its wild populations and ecosystems. Help lions by supporting the classic walking safaris that occur in our magnificent protected areas - that's the real walking with lions."

Along with Panthera's team of lion experts and Paula White, the Oryx publication was co-authored by Cole Burton (University of Alberta), Andrew Loveridge (Oxford University), and Panthera's Cat Advisory Council Member's Laurence Frank, and Christine and Urs Breitenmoser, who additionally chair the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission's Cat Specialist Group.

Download the paper 'Walking with lions: Why there is no role for captive-origin lions (Panthera Leo) in species restoration'